Conference programme

This session will examine the specific barriers to older citizens needing legal assistance to protect their rights and property.

Those barriers can be:

• structural (for example an inability to access services, service providers, courts and tribunals, and government departments by reason of technology which the older person either doesn't understand, or doesn't have available to them, or both);
• subjective (for example those lacking legal capacity who are not sui juris and who do not have in place the legal means by which another can act on their behalf – for example a Power of Attorney); and/or
• objective (for example where the need for access to justice stems from miscreance by those closest to the elderly person – carers, younger family members, accommodation providers etc).

The session will bring together those involved in meeting these justice challenges – legal practitioner, judges, geriatricians and others with a view to defining best practice when it comes to identifying the elder person's legal issue to be resolved, taking coherent instructions from them, collating the evidence, and prosecuting the elderly person's case before a court or tribunal. The session will also touch on the lawyer's ethical responsibilities in accepting retainers in this complex area of the law.

;
• Does export control, investment screening and sanctions policy fit into the 'economic security' concept, and where are the legal and conceptual boundaries between military, dual use and emerging technologies (AI, data, quantum)?;
• How does 'economic security' fit within international economic law – WTO agreements, investment treaties, arbitration practice and Free Trade Agreements – and how are security exceptions tested in practice?

Bringing together employment, M&A and competition law perspectives, the panel will examine transaction-critical issues including employee consultation and representation, key employee retention, data protection and AI in due diligence, interim operating restrictions, restrictive covenants and cross-border coordination.

This addendum is considered a landmark development and addresses the changing face of conflict in light of the weaponisation of AI, climate emergencies, educational violence, food insecurity, renewed negotiations on nuclear non-proliferation, and the rise of cyberspace and outer space as new battlegrounds.

With the rapid integration of AI tools, process automation and legal technology, many routine and repetitive tasks traditionally assigned to junior lawyers are being replaced by technology or delegated to alternative service providers.

This session will explore the capacity to make a will or trust, to marry, to consent to sex, and to serve as trustee. It will look at the impact of divorce and remarriage on estate plans, and will discuss predatory behaviours in later-in-life marriages, and the options available in respect of them.

The panel will bring together scholars and practitioners in trade, investment, finance and intellectual property to examine how international economic law (IEL) can advance — or inadvertently hinder — poverty eradication. Moving beyond growth averages, speakers will focus on concrete legal levers that shape fiscal space, policy autonomy and distributional outcomes in low- and middle-income countries.

This session will address the accessibility of justice, or otherwise, for parties caught up in preexisting arbitration clauses in employment/contractual agreements.

With a constantly changing regulatory, economic and political environment, reliable contractual relationships between suppliers and customers in the supply chain are more important than ever. To prevent severe consequences, the parties depend on the certainty and enforceability of their contracts, or may prefer to have escape options in certain situations.

In this session, we will examine the impact this has on the drafting of several typical general clauses in international contracts.

Table topics:

1. Evolution of the due diligence exercise
2. Current trends in FDI and merger control in cross-border M&A
3. Impact of AI on dealmaking
4. How is geopolitics shaping the M&A market?